Things we've kept hidden
by Never the End127
Summary: The knife twists painfully into Damon's skin, and he shouts out at the high stone ceiling; a name he'll later deny is Elena's.


**Things we never say**

**Rebekah interrogates Damon about Elena's whereabouts. Takes place—oh, I don't know. Whenever suits your fancy. It's Delena, right?**

* * *

The knife twisted painfully into Damon's gut, and he screams something he'll later deny is Elena's name at the high stone ceiling.

"I can do this all day, Damon." Rebekah's deceivingly sugar-sweet voice floats to him through a haze of agony and seething anger. "Just tell me… where… she… is." With each word, she gave a little jolt of the knife in hand and her fingernails trailed neatly across his shoulder.

"Go to hell." He slurred, his body hanging loosely from the metal clamps that were sunken into his wrists.

"Not for a long, long time, darling." She purred, and the point of a blade under his chin forced his head up. "Now. Tell me. Where is the doppelganger?"

"Not telling you." Damon grunted, and the blade was brutally torn from his body before slamming back home, crooked and scraping against his ribs. He could feel every inch of the icy blade, tearing through muscle and tissue and bone until he was reduced to a groaning, pleading mess, and when it was yanked away again he collapsed.

It was then that things started to get hazy. A pale head of bleached blonde hair, a knife, sticky with gore. The elaborately painted tiles of the walls. Blood on porcelain, blood on glass, blood on marble.

He started to see her just as his vision was starting to get dark and fuzzy around the edges.

Elena, the first day they met. He remembers how much he hated her, hated this copy, this cheat, this paper doll who thought she could ever replace _his_ Katherine. He remembered wanting her body, the way he's always wanted her body. Wanted that young, soft olive skin bare against his own, dark curls spilling over his chest, fingers laced through his as she swung their hands back and forth.

Katherine was all he wanted, and he hoped that when they opened that tomb, Elena would be collateral damage of the vicious brigade of zombie-vampires that would greet them.

The scene changes, and he's driving through Georgia with Elena in a banged up, battered blue car and she's just starting to wake up.

When she does, she's pissed, and he's pretty sure it doesn't have so much to do with him checking under her clothes for broken ribs, as it does a particular dishonest vampire relative of Damon's, who Elena happens to be in love with.

To which he responds as frustratingly vaguely as he can, feigning casual disinterest as she rambles on about how Stephen at least, was responsible, Stephen, at least, would know to call her aunt Jenna and make sure her family knew where she was.

She finally shuts up when he stops for coffee at the next gas station and gets her a late. He makes a joke, because what do you know? Instant human, just add coffee. She punches him, and it doesn't hurt but he still finds himself mildly annoyed by her

Eventually, she knocks back in the seat and kicks her converse up onto the dashboard. She glares at the horizon and eventually starts humming along with the radio, which is blasting some snappy, sassy little fifties tune that _he_ doesn't even recognize.

She's kind of growing on him.

Again, the world is snatched away from Damon's eyes, and for a moment he hears Rebekah's voice before he's plunged into an abyss of darkness all over again.

It's a few months later, and she's trying to get herself killed.

Sneaking off to go to Slater's house, thinking she's being brave when all she's really doing is royally pissing him off. She tries to punch him, and Damon's first instinct is to crush every bone in her hand to dust with his fist. But he doesn't. Speaks lowly, carefully, afraid that at any second that need to fight back is going to let out and he'll snap her neck.

He doesn't.

He threatens to break her arm later, and he has a feeling she's going to be pretty hostile towards him in the near future but he can't bring himself to care. She's the first human he's met in a long time that he doesn't want to _break_, just for fun.

She has an opinion on everything, he soon learns, and she enjoys discussing them. She never gets touchy or mad or anything—that emotion is one Elena reserves specifically for him, it seems. He's thinking of starting to call _that look_ the 'oh no, here's Damon' look.

Everything moves by in flashes, and the searing pain burns slow and steady behind his eyes, throbbing as the minutes drag on.

_Flash_

They're on Elena's front porch, and her lips look too soft and perfect to be real, like they belong to a doll. The air smells like old wicker furniture and aging honeysuckle and summer rain, fresh on the grass. She's close, too close, and he wonders why he's rubbing salt in this wound. It's a wound that he's reopened time and time again, one that he cut of his own accord, a mistake that lies in her heart and her eyes and the way she says his name.

Because the villain never gets the girl, and he should understand that by now.

_Flash_

She looks beautiful, draped in midnight blue silk and her hair a swath of tasteful curls. He takes her hand, and she looks somehow delicate and powerful in all the ways Kathrine wasn't. He recognizes vervain perfume, mixed with something old and rich and flowery, and it's almost enough to make him want to nip at her ear. It would almost be worth the burn and the searing look he'd get from her later.

_Flash_

She always makes breakfast for Stephen and herself whenever she stays over, always bacon and eggs and toast with honey, which is apparently a ritual her mother had established when she was little. Until a few weeks ago, Damon had been forced to drag himself down to the basement for a blood bag or pour himself a generous glassful of bourbon.

Now, when he comes down the stairs, a generous plateful of slightly burnt food is grudgingly shoved in front of him. Sometimes, the queen of holier-than-thou will even grace him with a smile.

_Flash_

She so clearly wants to be normal. He wishes she could be. But he wants her to himself, always and forever, for as long as he lives. He wants her to be a vampire and he knows that's selfish. Damon can't really find it in him to care.

_Flash_

She has this thing for Disney films that he doesn't completely understand. At any rate, she has good taste in comedy and action movies. He'll even watch the notebook and titanic with her, provided she's willing to sit on his side of the couch under his arm. Three hours later, he feels dead from the shoulder down, but it's worth it.

_Flash_

It's probably not a good sign that even as he's helping her zip up her dress, all he can think of is all the thousands of creative ways he could rip her _out _of it.

_Flash_

"Why do you have to say it with my necklace?"

"I am mad at you because I love you."

"Then maybe that's the problem."

"I don't deserve you."

"You're my best friend."

"If you keep pushing people away, you're not going to have anyone left!"

* * *

It doesn't take him much longer to realize that Rebekah can see all of this, that she's implanting some of it in his head.

"Bitch." He mutters incoherently, and his head falls to the side as her blade cuts his skin again.

Another thought strikes Damon as the icy-eyed blonde she-demon scraped her fingernails down the planes of his chest.

He wants her to see what he knows will upset her the most—wants Rebekah to see Elena's face twisted in ecstasy, wants to her to see how this bold, beautiful girl would just fall apart in his hands. Wanted to show her that Damon knew exactly how to move his hands, his fingers, his tongue and his hips to evoke any of the pretty little noises she would make—whimpers and cries and pleas and moans.

Damon wants Rebekah to feel all the jealousy and heart-wrenching pain he felt when he could hear Elena and his brother in the room next to his, laughing, cuddling, wrestling, kissing. (He tries not to stay awake when there's anything else going on.)

He wants Rebekah to be able to see Elena the way he always pictures her, hair mussed up perfectly, lips swollen and eyes bright, wrapped up clumsily in one of his own unbuttoned shirts and tangled up in his covers. _His, Damon's_. Not his brother's.

His to mark up and kiss and hold and love. His to defend, his to protect, his to put up with her inhuman stubbornness and to hold her heart—warm and fierce and selfless, and everything he wishes he could be.

But it's hard to visualize something he's never seen before. So.

What is wrong with him, that he has to prove to this random, insignificant Original that Elena belongs with him? Why should she care which brother gets the girl?

Elena would probably slap him right now if she could hear what he was thinking, and the thought gives him enough strength to keep his head up as the next blow comes crashing into the side of his face.

Rebekah draws away with a hiss, her blade shiny and sticky with his blood and her teeth barred fiercely. She laughs, maybe. He can't tell, everything's too hazy right now. It's like he's still in a dream.

"You'll never have her anyways. Why don't you tell?" the blade bit into his skin, caressing under his jaw as Rebekah laughed. "If you can't have her, why should Stephen?"

She makes a fair point.

But he won't tell.

Elena isn't his; she may never be his. But it doesn't matter. Elena's love isn't something he needs to survive. Her happiness, her light, her life is.

Without her, he's just another soulless monster damned to torment the human race for all of eternity. Without her,

He'll never tell.

* * *

First Delena fanfic. Hope to be uploading more soon- any suggestions? i just found the series on netflix a while ago, but I'm pretty up to speed with everything going on. Let me know what you thought!


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